Tube amplifier - tube bias and time to warm up


Power Amplifier

I have a Cary Rocket 88R tube power amp, it is not an integrated, power amp only, but my questions are pretty basic.

The specs for biasing my amp are 195-220 Milliamps.
Currently it has:

  • Quad set of KT88's
  • Pair of EL84's for the voltage
  • Pair of 12AX7's for the preamp drivers  

Status

All tubes light up.
No tubes are glowing hot.
All fuses (2) are working.

When I power up my amp to do the tube biasing, I'm not getting any milliamp reading on my Multi Meter. Am reluctant to leave amp on after 30 seconds with no milliamps showing. Worried I'll blow something. 

I get a rise up to about 40 Milliamps when I turn the amp off. But nothing within 30 seconds when it is on. The Bias LED's are lit, which indicates that there should be bias current available.

When I remove the Bias headphone jack, I do not get any sound out of the amp. 
All tubes light up - but no sound. But again, I'm shutting the amp off after 30 seconds for worry that I don't have the Bias set properly and I could damage it.

I've had the amp in the shop months ago and I don't recall how long it takes to warm up to get a bias read, and long enough to put out sound. 

Questions:

  1. Should I have some reading on my meter after 15-20 seconds?   
  2. How long before I should have some Milliamps showing?
  3. How long before I should have music coming out? 
  4. Could a bad tube cause this situation?


Thanks for any thoughts. 
Graham

128x128regenav

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

Is matching output tubes necessary if I can adjust bias for each of four tubes ?

@inna Yes! Its one thing to set the bias point, which defines the operating point of the tube. But the tube has a dynamic operating curve; ideally each of the tubes have matching curves to minimize distortion at all power levels; IOW they are working perfectly in tandem all the time. This is true even if the power tubes are biased class A1.

To do this properly, the tubes are matched on something called a curve tracer. They can be created using a computer platform, like this one, which is a kit that allows you to create a very accurate test platform. There are a number of kits and construction articles on how to build one for yourself. One that is already built is likely going to be a couple of grand$.